Those of you who have avoided childhood illnesses without vaccines are lucky. You couldn’t do it without us pro-vaxxers. Once the vaccination rates begin dropping, the less herd immunity will be able to protect your children. The more people you convert to your anti-vax stance, the quicker that luck will run out.
http://www.voicesforvaccines.org/growing-up-unvaccinated/
You could also call this, "How To Write an an Article Bashing Vaccine Critics, in 10 Easy Steps." Step 1) Paint yourself as a former member of the group you wish to attack ("them"), starting with the title, and continuing with every possible "crunchy" alternative to Western medicine. Title: "Growing Up Unvaccinated." First paragraph: "I wasn’t vaccinated. I was brought up on an incredibly healthy diet: no sugar till I was 1, breastfed for over a year, organic homegrown vegetables, raw milk, no MSG, no additives, no aspartame. My mother used homeopathy, aromatherapy, osteopathy; we took daily supplements of vitamin C, echinacea, cod liver oil."
Yet despite this seemingly perfect childhood experience the author was still subject to some of the worst acute diseases such as: measles, mumps, rubella, viral meningitis, chickenpox, tonsillitis, scarlatina and whooping cough. The author questions why she still had to deal with these illnesses when she had a perfect diet. Her conclusion seems to be that not being vaccinated was the key and so had her own children fully vaccinated along with a healthy diet. Her children, she claims, rarely get sick and are healthier than she ever was. So a healthy diet is not enough, vaccines are the only way to prevent these diseases. Case closed, right? But it's not that easy.
http://www.elderandsage.com/1/post/2014/01/a-rebuttal-to-growing-up-unvaccinated.html
I specifically remember a time when I was seven; there was this huge deal about getting the Hepatitis B vaccine. There were clinics all over town offering the vaccine; so of course, my mother had all 5 of her children there to get vaccinated. Not even a day after I was vaccinated, I started to become very sick. My lymph nodes in my neck were swollen, so naturally I thought I was developing strep throat. Then the lymph nodes in my pelvic area started to became very swollen to the point where I couldn’t sit down or walk. I also started noticing these little red dots forming on my feet. Eventually those red dots spread all over the bottom half of my legs and spread all the way up to my knee’s to the point where the dots were no longer dots, they were huge purple splots (yes, I called them splots). My head, neck, stomach, and legs were extremely puffy and swollen. No matter how many times my parents took me to the doctor, there was nothing that they could do because they had never seen this illness before. I remember being so sick that I would secretly hope that I would die than to have to keep feeling that sick. At seven years old, I would literally pray to God to take me and relieve me from the pain I was feeling.
After each round of vaccines, I went home injured. I would scream a high-pitched, haunting cry all night. I had a high fever, arched my back and stiffened in an odd way (my mom later learning that was seizure activity) and had diarrhea. My mom was obviously concerned but the doctors assured her it was normal, a coincidence, and that I would die without my vaccines. She went in one more time, for one more round of vaccines. I had to be resuscitated after administration. I wasn't the same after that. Then came more of the inconsolable screaming. She later learned that is the encephalitic cry, a side effect of the DTP vaccine. I began seizing, then became lethargic and glassy eyed. Her offers of tylenol at the doctor's orders were minor gestures of comfort that only served to increase the brain damage. Doctors reassured her over and over again, adamantly, that it wasn't the vaccines and that I must have epilepsy. They said maybe I was allergic to something, too, but they told her I absolutely had to be vaccinated. One doctor told her with a straight face to vaccinate me in the hospital so I could be helped if I coded again. At the same time, my mom had her second child, who also received a couple vaccines before she walked away from this situation of harm and bullying. She never looked back.
http://guggiedaly.blogspot.com/2014/01/growing-up-unvaccinated-voices-for.html
What isn’t okay is the way her words are being used. They’re being used to judge and shame parents. They’re being held up as an example of what will happen if you don’t vaccinate your children. They’re being regarded as some sort of universal truth. That is terrible.
One person’s story is one person’s story. Nothing more or less. It may jumpstart your desire to research an issue, but it shouldn’t push you into a decision. And anyone who would send you such an article and then tell you that you should make a decision because of it is wrong, and to be ignored. (I know some people send it out of concern, like “hey, did you see this?” and that’s okay. It’s the people that say “See, you were wrong, here.” that’s bad.)
This is a response to Growing Up Unvaccinated, an article designed to promote vaccines that has been spreading across Facebook.
This article seems to have three purposes:
Most things supported by our government, like vaccines, are conveyed through fear instead of any type of logic or understanding. Fear is an easy way to get people to act irrationally, it’s what was behind the bird flu epidemic, e-coli food poisoning, and so many other health “threats”, whether they were realistic or not.
Fear is the first resort of those who cannot prove their case....
If you like statistics you’ll notice that deaths and complications from some of the diseases she acquired are rare. You’ll also notice that a very small percentage of unvaccinated people actually contract them.
Remember that people die of all kinds of things everyday. In some cases more people die from lightning strikes than some of these diseases she listed — I bet some of you could be convinced to get a lightning vaccine if one existed...
http://www.thomasvan.com/health/a-response-to-growing-up-unvaccinated